


Bad Things Happen Bingo: Caught in a Storm

by DrowningInStarlight



Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29764065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrowningInStarlight/pseuds/DrowningInStarlight
Summary: Bacta likes to think that he knows Jedi.
Relationships: CT-1776 | Bacta & Aava Arek
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Bad Things Happen Bingo: Caught in a Storm

**Author's Note:**

> i will forever be sad that we didn't get more exploration of bacta and aava's dynamic because i think it would have gone to some really interesting places!! so this ficlet has been living rent free in my brain ever since i finished campaign back in july. enjoy!!

Bacta likes to think that he knows Jedi. Not the details, perhaps, but the basics, and most importantly, the things that Jedi need of him. He’d worked well with Sian, and he knows it. The thought stings, nowadays, but it’s mixed with pride, too. 

None of his experience with Jedi had prepared him for _this._ Being caught in a blizzard on the hostile ice planet of Vaanor, with nothing but his blaster, coordinates for a pre-arranged pick up from the Mynock, and— and Aava Arek, caught in the force visions this planet specialises in. 

Bacta hadn’t known the Bluebird was also here until it was too late. He just hopes that Lyn had been able to convince Tryst and Leenik to follow her common sense and stay put, instead of picking fights. He hopes they have the common sense not to mention Tamlin. 

Aava had stumbled out of the entrance of the abandoned temple, and into the swirling snow. Bacta had gone for this blaster instinctively, but she hadn’t reacted. She hadn’t acknowledged him at all, and that was when Bacta recognised the signs of a vision. 

The snow billows around them in the growing wind. Aava’s eyes are distant, fixed on whatever horror she’s seeing, and Bacta notices that her hands are shaking. He’s never seen Aava look anything less than assured and confident. Never seen her look _afraid._

“Aava,” he says again, and she doesn’t even blink. 

He could kill her, right here, right now. He knows this. He knows that it would be the sensible plan, the safe plan, the one that ends in a world where Tamlin can grow up with the safety that Bacta and crew are failing to give him. 

He imagines killing her. Then what? He doesn’t know what comes next. 

“Aava?” he repeats quietly, almost quiet enough that he doesn’t think she’ll have heard. But then her face crumples and she meets his gaze for the first time. Her eyes are blurry and tear filled. “Sy?” she whispers, and then she starts to cry. 

Bacta feels like someone’s stabbed him in the heart, and _kriff_ they don’t have time for this, the wind is getting wilder and there’s howling in the distance, now, audible even to his ears. Aava Arek is standing before him, tired and cold and caught in the dragging remnants of a force vision, and she’s crying and Bacta doesn’t know what to do. Not with her. For a moment, she isn’t the terrifying force witch who stole the child of his dead friend to train in the darkness, this is just… just another scared, broken child. Just like Tryst, just like Leenik. Hell, just like _Bacta._

“Kriff,” he says, because he’s too damn soft and it’s going to get him killed one of these days and he knows it. “Aava, I’m going to pick you up, okay?” 

She doesn’t respond, but they don’t have any time to waste. Already, he can feel his fingers going numb. He scoops her up in his arms, and she holds on around his shoulders, seemingly by instinct. The wind is screaming, now, cold and bitter. Now he’s holding her, he can feel her shaking, and he’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t shaking too. He didn’t notice darkness falling, but now he can barely see to put one foot in front of the other. They can’t stay here and wait it out. If they stop, they’ll freeze. If they stop, they die. Bacta knows this with deadly certainty. 

“Listen to me, soldier,” he says. “It’s not real. Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not happening. You’re here with me, you’re—” his voice catches on the word, but he says it anyway. “You’re safe.” 

“You’re afraid of me,” she says distantly. “I can feel it.” 

Talking’s a good sign. Right? Talking’s gotta be a good sign. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m afraid of you, and what you stand for, and— and how much Tryst cares about you even though I don’t think you’re good for each other, and what you mean for Tamlin, and…” 

“I just want Gris back,” she whispers. “Everything would be okay if Gris was here.” 

“I want her back too,” Bacta says, taking another uncertain step and plunging deeper into snow. “C’mon, stay with me, Aava. We aren’t going to die here.” 

She doesn’t respond. It’s so cold that Bacta can feel the edges of sleepiness tugging at him, and that’s a death sentence, he knows it, he knows it. He’s seen too many of his brothers fall asleep in the ice and never wake up again. He starts to talk again, struggling for breath in the snow. “You know,” he manages, “I’ve had to carry Tryst and Leenik like this more times than I can count on my fingers. They’re always doing stuff that involves me having to physically carry them out of places, either unconscious, or conscious and furious. And they always make fun of me for working out, even though they know how often I have to carry them around—” 

“That— that does sound like them,” Aava says, almost inaudible over the wind. Bacta looks at her through the snow and her eyes look a little clearer. 

“Thank force,” he breathes. “Aava, do you have any idea where we need to go?” 

“I can— I can signal the Bluebird,” she says. “They’re waiting for me— Where’s Tamlin?” 

Bacta tenses. “I can’t tell you that,” he says. “You know I can’t.” 

She looks miserable in his arms, but nods. “Is he safe?” 

“I left him with the people I trust most in the entire galaxy.”

“So, Tryst and Leenik?” she says, and as she says it he can hear why that’s not, perhaps, the most comforting of statements. 

“Also Lyn,” he says. 

“Okay. Okay, Luroon knows what she’s doing,” Aava says, almost to herself. “Bacta, if you’re not going to kill me you need to make it look like you tried.” 

He puts her down in the snow and stops to look at her. “Because of…”

“Because of the Empire, yes.” 

“Why are you doing this?” he asks. He means… he means so many things. Every single one of the messy web that’s spun between her and his family. 

She doesn’t answer, but she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a long range comm. She presses something on it, and says “There. The Bluebird will be here, and I’ve signalled the Mynock, too. You should stun me and get out of here.” 

“Aava—” he begins, but she shakes her head. 

“We’re still enemies,” she says. “This can’t change that.” 

“I know,” Bacta says. “Force, I know it. Don’t hurt Tryst and Leenik.” 

She gives him a sardonic look. “Back at you.” 

“I’m not gonna wish you good luck,” he says, raising his blaster, “But…” 

“May the force be with me?” she asks. 

“Something like that,” he says, and stuns her.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr as [drowninginstarlights!](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/drowninginstarlights)


End file.
